UNCERTAINTY AND CONSUMPTION: NEW EVIDENCE IN OECD COUNTRIES

This work analyses the empirical evidence about precautionary saving in OECD countries in the period 1955–2000. Unlike the previous literature, we perform the test using a measure of uncertainty allowing for heterogeneity in stochastic processes which generate data for each country and selecting for each economy the autoregressive moving average process which best describes the series. The results obtained support the main conclusion of precautionary saving theory, showing that a greater degree of uncertainty increases saving. A less clear conclusion is obtained with reference to the effect of uncertainty on consumption growth, which does not seem to be strongly supported by the data.     

TAXES AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN OECD COUNTRIES

I examine how taxes and tax progressivity affect two different types of entrepreneurship—established business ownership and nascent entrepreneurship—in a large group of Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development countries, using 2000–2009 macro‐level Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data. Empirical evidence from Arellano‐Bond generalized method of moments estimation suggests that higher tax progressivity exerts a negative influence on nascent enterprises but appears to have no impact on established business ownership. Changes in marginal and average tax rates are found to have no significant influence on either type of entrepreneurship. The most important contribution of the article is the comparison of tax impacts on actual and nascent entrepreneurship rates. (JEL H24, H29, M13, M19)     

FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND INCOME IN AFRICAN COUNTRIES

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the relationship between financial system development and economic development. Using cointegration and vector autoregressive estimations on annual data from Africa, we examine the nature of the relationship between financial development and income. We find mixed results on both the short‐ and the long‐run relationships between the two variables. We find finance causing income, income causing finance, and bidirectional causality. The results indicate that neither the short‐run effects nor the long‐run relationship seem to linearly depend on the level of financial development or the stage of development. (JEL E44, O16, G20)     

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CONSUMPTION, INCOME AND WEALTH IN HONG KONG

Abstract. This paper estimates a consumption function for Hong Kong along the lines of the standard life‐cycle model. I find a stable relationship between consumption, labour income and wealth with plausible long‐run estimates of the implied marginal propensity to consume out of income and wealth. The marginal propensity to consume out of housing wealth is estimated to be lower than in other industrialized economies, which is consistent with a relatively uneven distribution of wealth in Hong Kong. Arithmetically, the decline in housing wealth in Hong Kong since 1997 can more than account for the weakness of consumption since then.     

NATIONAL WEALTH ESTIMATION IN SOCIALIST COUNTRIES

The CMEA standard of statistical information provides a system of national wealth indicators. The paper deals with certain time series published in these countries and in the CMEA Statistical Yearbook as the components of that system. Special attention is paid to the USSR interbranch balance of 30 types of fixed assets cross-classified by 105 branches of economy. This balance is analogous to the input-output table technique in the western literature. On the basis of this balance the Soviet statisticians furnish coefficients of direct and total requirements in fixed assets for each branch. Such coefficients are usually called capital ratios or capital coefficients. In the USSR they are calculated together with the coefficients of direct and total requirements of labour for the same industries, and they supplement input-output tables. The scheme of the fixed assets balance and the matrix for the calculation of these coefficients are described in the paper together with some numerical illustrations of actual coefficients reached in the calculations.     

CONSUMPTION (IN)EFFICIENCY AND FINANCIAL ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT

Consumption may be inefficient when a household cannot choose the optimal bundle of goods at a minimum cost. After discussing alternative approaches, this paper proposes the use of money metric indirect utility function motivated by Feenstra and Varian in measuring consumption inefficiency. Then, Bamoul–Tobin transactions demand for money model is extended to show how household ability to manage its income, expenditure and financial accounts may affect consumption inefficiency. Results of the stochastic cost frontier approach, which is employed in estimation and the prediction of the European Union household consumption inefficiency, suggest that household expenditure performance is partly explained by the changes in the consumption efficiency and the efficiency is not independent of financial account management.     

SAVINGS BEHAVIOR IN 17 OECD COUNTRIES

This article compares savings behavior in a sample of 17 OECD countries over 24 years. On the basis of an analysis of variance and of a life-cycle-hypothesis-based equation, we test the homogeneity of households' savings behavior. It appears that one cannot really speak of a homogeneous saving behavior across countries. This is a relevant finding in times of increasing economic and financial integration.     

财富积累、习惯、偏好改变、不确定性与家庭消费决策

在本文中,我们建立了一个相当一般的分析家庭消费与储蓄跨期优化决策问题的理论框架。使用综合了家庭的当期消费、消费习惯、财富积累、偏好改变多种作用影响的效用函数,在家庭劳动收入具有不确定性的情况下,我们导出了家庭消费与储蓄跨期优化决策问题的闭式解,给出了家庭消费函数和欧拉方程的解析式。使用中国农村居民的住户调查数据对理论模型中导出的欧拉方程进行估计的结果表明,除了收入和家庭财富以外,消费习惯和预防性储蓄动机确实也都是影响我国农村居民家庭的消费与储蓄决策的重要因素。     

LABOR MARKET INSTITUTIONS AND MACROECONOMIC VOLATILITY IN A PANEL OF OECD COUNTRIES

In this paper we analyze empirically how labor market institutions influence business cycle volatility in a sample of 20 OECD countries. Our results suggest that countries characterized by high union density tend to experience more volatile movements in output, whereas the degree of coordination of the wage bargaining system and the strictness of employment protection legislation appear to be only of limited importance. We also find some evidence suggesting that highly coordinated wage bargaining systems have a dampening impact on inflation volatility.     

财富偏好、习惯形成和消费与财富的波动率

本文构造了基于财富和习惯的消费—资产组合投资模型,其中代表性投资者的效用函数不但依赖于投资者的消费历史,还依赖于其财富水平。本文所提出的模型是对Merton(1971)、Bakshi和Chen(1996)、Sundaresan(1989)和Constantinides(1990)的消费—资产组合投资模型的推广。我们使用随机动态规划求解模型,并给出了最优的消费和组合投资规则。我们使用此模型计算了消费与财富的波动率,发现习惯形成和较弱的财富偏好均能导致更加平滑的消费行为,从而解释了消费平滑之谜。     

POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS,GOVERNANCE, AND CONSUMPTION EXPENDITURE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: A PANEL DATA ANALYSIS

This article aims at identifying the determinants of government expenditures of developing countries by placing emphasis on the political institutions and governance variables, which have not been addressed so much in the previous literature. Using a panel data analysis for 97 developing countries from the period 1984 to 2004, this study finds evidence that controlling for economic, social, and demographical factors, political institutional and governance variables significantly influence the consumption expenditure in developing countries. Political institutional variables such as the type of political ruling and political power in the parliament positively influence consumption expenditure; on the contrary, governance variables such as corruption influence negatively. Furthermore, we find that autocratic governments with military ruling are not particularly accommodative toward consumption expenditures as the public spending significantly shrinks under military dictatorship compared with other forms of governance. In order to check consistency of our findings, we ran alternative specifications as well as conducted extreme bound tests. Our results largely survived these tests showing robustness of our findings. (JEL E01, E02, E61, E62, H2, H4, H5, H6, O11, O5)     

INTERNATIONAL AND INTERTEMPORAL COMPARISONS OF REAL PRODUCT IN OECD COUNTRIES A GROWTH SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS

This paper provides two new data sets for comparisons of real income in OECD countries. The first set provides adjusted real series for GDP and its components from 1960 to 1993 based on OECD 1990 purchasing power parities. The second set uses OECD PPP of different benchmark years, and interpolates these applying national price indices. Comparisons between both alternatives, Penn World Tahle Mark 5 (PWT 5) and its new version (PWT 5.6), in terms of economic growth and convergence, reveal some remarkable differences. Moreover, there are wider differences concerning the relative countries' position in GDP per capita ranking. Estimations of convergence equations based on OECD data yield a better fit than those obtained using PWT data, although there are also some significant differences between PWT 5 and PWT 5.6. Nevertheless, a very positive result is that other parameters of interest in these equations are not affected by the use of these different data sources.     

INCOME DISTRIBUTION AND REDISTRIBUTION: A MICRODATA ANALYSIS FOR SEVEN COUNTRIES

This paper reports the detailed results of a comparison of the distribution and redistribution of income in seven countries using the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) database. Use of LIS facilitates comparisons of inequality in respect to similarly-defined variables, permits methodological alternatives to be used, and allows the countries to be compared on aspects of income ranking and policy equity in ways not otherwise possible.
The results indicate a pattern of inequality in which Sweden is the most equal, followed by Norway, the U.K. and Canada, while among the less equal countries Israel is generally more equal than Germany-or the USA., whose relative inequality depends on the measure chosen. Use of the LIS database also allows a more detailed explanation of these results, noting, for example, the role of cash benefits in increasing equality in Sweden and the U.K., and in aiding the bottom quintile in Germany; and the important part played by self-employment income in contributing to the high top quintile shares in Germany and Israel, and in rendering the Norwegian distribution less equal than that of its Scandinavian neighbour.
The wealth of the database, however, means that methodological issues need to be treated both more explicitly and more carefully than is possible with more restrictive data. To interpret the data also requires a considerable degree of knowledge about the institutional features of tax and social provisions in each country, so that an income microdatabase could usefully be completed by one focused on the details of such provisions.     

金融发展与中国跨省消费风险分担

本文利用中国1978—2008年间的省级数据,考察金融发展对消费风险分担程度的影响,结果发现风险分担程度随时间显著变化。在1978-1992年时间段上,金融深化提高了消费的风险分担程度,而信贷市场发展对消费的风险分担程度的影响并不明显。在1993-2002年时间段上,信贷市场发展提高了消费的风险分担程度,而金融深化降低了消费的风险分担程度。在2003-2008年时间段上,金融深化对消费的风险分担程度的影响并不明显,只有微弱的证据表明,信贷市场发展在该阶段提高了各省人均居民消费的风险分担程度。而证券市场发展对消费的风险分担程度的影响一直不明显。     

金融地理学:国外地理学科研究新动向

金融地理学是近年来兴起的一门边缘交叉学科。鉴于国内对该学科研究的薄弱状态，文章对金融地理学的学术渊源、最新研究现状等多方面进行了探讨，并指出区域金融学与金融地理学的联系与区别，展望其应用前景，为金融学问题的探讨提出了全新的方法论和研究视角，并为其进一步研究奠定了初步的理论基础。     

MACROECONOMIC AND REDISTRIBUTIONAL EFFECTS OF CONSUMPTION TAXES IN THE USA*

This paper studies the effect of an increase in consumption taxes using a dynamic general equilibrium model of overlapping generations calibrated to the US economy. When the proceeds are used to reduce income taxes, the reform raises the aggregate capital and labour supply in the long run. Workers increase labour supply immediately in response to the reform, while consumption rises only gradually. The tax reform also transfers wealth from old consumers to young consumers. As a result, while future generations experience significant welfare gains, current generations, particularly old consumers, tend to experience sizable welfare losses. When the proceeds are used for a lump‐sum transfer, the aggregate capital and labour both decrease in the long run. This reform is welfare‐improving for the current low‐income households.     

DIFFERENCES IN THE MEASUREMENT OF WEALTH, WEALTH INEQUALITY AND WEALTH COMPOSITION OBTAINED FROM ALTERNATIVE U.S. WEALTH SURVEYS

Since household wealth surveys have been widely used to study saving and other issues, it is important to examine the reliability of the various survey estimates of wealth. In this paper the authors assess the quality characteristics of the National Longitudinal Survey of Mature Men and the Retirement History Survey, as compared to the 1983 Survey of Consumer Finances. We find that the NLS and especially the RHS underreport wealth and wealth concentration. The underestimates of wealth held in the form of common stock, business equity, and investment real estate equity are substantial. The principal problem lies in underrepresentation of both tails of the wealth and income distributions, with the consequences of underrepresenting the upper tail being especially serious for wealth measurement. We examine several potential reasons for the underrepresentation.     

THE DISSAVING OF ANNUITY WEALTH AND MARKETABLE WEALTH IN RETIREMENT

This paper compares the automatic dissaving of annuity wealth with the discretionary dissaving of marketable wealth that would result from life-cycle consumption behavior by retired persons. In simulations of a life-cycle model based on the isoelastic utility function and realistic parameter values, we find that marketable wealth normally would be dissaved more rapidly than annuity wealth. This suggests that empirical findings that show the opposite relation-slow dissaving of marketable wealth being accompanied by faster dissaving of annuity wealth (or total wealth)-should not be interpreted as evidence that supports the life-cycle theory.     

GOVERNMENT SERVICES IN RELATION TO TOTAL CONSUMPTION OF THE POPULATION IN ASIAN AND PACIFIC COUNTRIES,WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO INDIA*

The paper focuses on hitherto neglected fields of trends in the total consumption of the population in the Asian and Pacific countries and pays special attention to situations in India. In doing so it presents a comparative picture on the basis of four variants of the concepts as delineated in the Technical Report prepared by the United Nations Statistical Office. The proportion of government services in the total consumption of the population in the countries depended on socio-political arrangements and policy considerations. Over the years these proportions either increased or remained constant or declined as the situation developed. In the Indian context the paper deals in detail with the magnitude and proportions of each type of government service over the period 1960-79. Recognizing that it is the access to and not provision of the services which should rightly be considered, the Indian National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) during July 1980—June 1981 collected country-wide data from households on the benefit they received from public services in the field of education, health and public distribution of essential commodities. The data from the survey in conjunction with further work proposed by the NSSO should help in the preparation of quantitative estimates of benefit received from these services by various socio-economic groups in rural and urban areas. The paper touches upon the factors affecting personal consumption expenditure. It provides broad direction for future work on the subject.